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Touch Screen Technology Explained

touch screen is a display screen that is found on computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets that works as a visual input device with screens that are sensitive to pressure.

The user interacts with the computer screen without the appearance of physical keyboard just by clicking the pictures or words that appear on the screen.

Touch screen that are found in devices like smartphones and tablets are designed to keep the fingerprints from being visible.

It is a bigger screen that fits in well with the multi media functions are the ones that are found on the latest mobiles. 

One can watch videos, movies or TV shows that makes it easier to view on a larger surface area that covers the the complete screen of the mobile.

It does away with the keypad and for music, photographs and videos, you hardly need buttons and you only need camera buttons when you take a picture. 

It makes sense for these to be designed to appear on the screen, rather than to stick out all over the phone.

For texting and emailing, the touch screen does have some disadvantages but one of the good things is their flexibility.

If you are used to typing on a keyboard, you can set the touch screen keypad to be in the traditional format as per your needs.

The preferences with the touch screen is somewhat different to a keypad that some people cannot get on with it for text messaging.

 A screen cannot provide the same feedback for your finger as a button the screen is flat and although smartphones use what is known as haptic feedback the technology to give you finger the impression of pressing a button, it does have its drawbacks.

The touch screen also makes it impossible to text using touch alone and one should not text while driving or in the theater with the phone on silent, when watching TV, when walking through a busy shopping center.

Some people find that a touch screen is also too sensitive at times and when you just move a finger over one of the on-screen buttons it can be enough to be detected as a choice.

 This becomes a problem when you delete something that is an important text or email that has just come in.

Mobile phone technology which comes with the latest software on touch screen phones does allow you to play some games that uses motion sensor technology and by turning the phone, it makes the game more interactive.

We see touch screen phones continue to evolve, with even better and more impressive features than are standard on the currently available ones.

There is no one universal technology behind the phenomenon but you will find that the two most commonly used systems are resistive and capacitive touch screens. 

 The resistive touch screens are the most basic and common touch screens, the ones used at ATMs and supermarkets and retail outlets, that require an electronic signature with that small grey pen. 

These screens can resist your touch and if you press hard enough you can feel the screen bend slightly. 

Resistive screens work with the two electrically conductive layers bending to touch one another, as in this picture:

It contains layers where one is resistive and the other is conductive, separated by a gap of tiny dots called spacers to keep the two layers apart until you touch it.

 An electrical current runs through those yellow layers at all times, but when your finger hits the screen the two are pressed together and the electrical current changes at the point of contact. 

The software recognizes a change in the current at these coordinates and carries out the function that corresponds with that spot.


Resistive touch screens are durable and consistent, but they’re harder to read because the multiple layers reflect more ambient light.

They also can only handle one touch at a time – ruling out, for example, the two-finger zoom on an iPhone.

That’s why high-end devices are much more likely to use capacitive touchscreens that detect anything that conducts electricity.
Unlike resistive touch screens, capacitive screens do not use the pressure of your finger to create a change in the flow of electricity.

 Instead, they work with anything that holds an electrical charge and that is including human skin.

Capacitive touch screens are constructed from materials like copper that store electrical charges in an electrostatic grid of tiny wires, each smaller than a human hair.

There are two main types of capacitive touch screens, surface and projective.

Surface capacitive uses sensors at the corners and a thin evenly distributed film across the surface whereas projective capacitive uses a grid of rows and columns with a separate chip for sensing.

In both instances, when a finger hits the screen a tiny electrical charge is transferred to the finger to complete the circuit, creating a voltage drop on that point of the screen.

You will find multi-touch screens, is using a technology called frustrated total internal reflection (FTRI) for their larger screens, which are as big as 82-inches.

When you touch an FTRI screen you scatter light and several cameras on the back of the screen detect this light as an optical change, just as a capacitive touch screen detects a change in electrical current.

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